National Party News

National Party News

The modern Republican Party has utterly failed to effectively reach out to the black community.

This failure is most clear at the grassroots level, where Republicans have not done enough to make clear to American blacks that they understand, care about and have solutions to their problems.

By contrast, about one-quarter of the membership of the Democratic National Committee is black. This strong representation within the party facilitates more hiring and elected representation of American blacks in government at every level and creates a positive ripple effect throughout the community.

While this will cause some gnashing of teeth in the West Wing of the White House, and is one of the great ironies of our political age, former President William Jefferson Clinton is the one person in America who can save the Democratic Party from the kind of defeat in November that could destroy the Obama presidency.

The best-case outcome for Democrats today is that if they don't lose control of the House or the Senate, they will lose enough seats to make Washington completely ungovernable, and make the Obama agenda completely unpassable, and politically destroy the two years leading into the presidential campaign of 2012.

I have a theory about the differences between a Republican primary and a
general election. To win a Republican primary, you have to win a majority of
white men. To win a general election, though (and this is in Senate seats and
in politically competitive House seats), you have to win a majority (or at
least get fairly close) of white married women.

Two articles caught my eye this morning. The New York Times has a front-page article about a new strategy from
House Democrats, which presents a clear contrast from the House Republicans.
Where Republicans announced an aggressive push to interact with the voting
public with a new campaign called America Speaks Out, the Democrats took a
different tack. They avoided the people.

Specifically, according to the Times,
they avoided town-hall meetings.

Anxiety over the growing fiscal crisis has prevented the Democratic majority in
Congress from being able to write a budget this year, so divided are
they over spending, deficits and debt. Their struggle this
week to find the votes for a "jobs" bill that would extend
unemployment insurance (not paid for) and business tax cuts arose from the
same political pressure — more and more Democrats are joining Republicans,
demanding that government start paying for what it spends.

A.B. Stoddard is joined by Chris
Kofinis and John Feehery, Democratic and Republican strategists, to
discuss the Tea Party's relationship with the GOP and the
administration's reaction to the Gulf oil spill.

A little more than a year ago, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) came up with what I thought was a smart idea. He convinced a group of distinguished Republicans, including Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, that the GOP needed to spend some time listening to the voters to find out what they wanted from their government.

He founded the National Council for a New America with that express purpose. Why don’t we just listen for a change?

Over the past several weeks we have received an unusual volume of mail requesting that research and writings be done regarding the Republican Party and its significance in advancing the plight of American blacks in this nation.

While pollsters and high priest of blackness continue to remind us that black support for the Republican Party has significantly dropped since the election of President Barack Obama, we don't hear much about the many serious black conservative candidates running for Congress today with an excellent shot at winning.

After spending an entire year on healthcare reform, it appears congressional
Democrats, sinking in the polls, have now decided to push on regulatory
reform, revisit oversight of regulations for the mining and oil drilling
industries and pass energy reform and — yes — an immigration overhaul as
well. This is the definition of bring it on.